


Deliver Me

by bending_sickle



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Assisted Suicide, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 16:04:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10666095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bending_sickle/pseuds/bending_sickle
Summary: Furiosa has come to terms that she will not recover from her wounds suffered during the war. Now she just has to convince Toast of the same.





	Deliver Me

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Furiosa/Toast, “You’re the only one I trust to do this.”

Furiosa isn’t getting better.  What’s more: she isn’t going to _get_ better.  Toast chews on her thumbnail, waiting for the Healing Mother to come back through the door.  She can’t make out what is being said inside, even if she presses her ear right up against the metal.

Furiosa’s bedchamber is one of the few to have doors.  None of the war boys have any doors or even bedchambers to their name, all of them sleeping piled together in large halls, like they did before Immortan’s death.  The women - those who used to be milk mothers and breeders - have taken to sleeping in the open, up on the topmost parts of the Citadel.  Some of the Vuvalini sleep there, too. 

Toast’s sisters - not wives or breeders anymore, but sisters birthed together from the vault amidst sandstorms and blood, bullets and war - do not stray so far.  They sleep beneath the rocks, near Furiosa.

They want to be close, always. Just in case.

Toast tugs nervously at her growing hair.  She wants to cut it again, shorter than before, but she hasn’t gathered the courage to do it yet. She doesn’t know if this time it would be a victory over Immortan Joe, like before.  Maybe it would be a battle lost, instead.  Her admitting that his face still haunts her dreams, his fingers still pull her head back, tearing her hair from the roots as she struggles.

The door opens and the Healing Mother slips out, quiet and light on her feet as if her bones weighed nothing.  She reminds Toast of Miss Giddy.  The same stick-figure frame, the same steel behind the eyes.  It’s one of the reasons why she can’t bear seeing her.

The other is that the Healing Mother has never once given her good news about Furiosa.  This time, she does not give Toast even that.  She just slinks away, disappearing into the shadows and the cracks in the rock.

Toast stands up and straightens her clothes - war boy trousers below and Breeder’s White above.  She hates both articles of clothing, but has to admit the trouser have their use.  They certainly have plenty of pockets.  As for the White…  She will find an alternative soon enough.

Her nerves thus collected, Toast walks into Furiosa’s chambers, closing the door behind her.  She does not look up until she reaches the bed and the chair beside it.  She sits down in the chair.  Furiosa's hand is hanging off the back of it.  It has become too heavy for Furiosa to use.  Or rather, she has become to weak.

“What did she say?” Toast looks up at Furiosa as she speaks, bracing herself.

Furiosa gives her a lopsided smile.  “Nothing good.”  Her eyes are bloodshot and shining, her forehead pinpricked with sweat.  The fever has done nothing but rise.  

“But what did she _say_ ,” Toast insists.  The red splotches on Furiosa’s skin scare her, as does the quick shallow breaths Furiosa has been taking since the night before.

Furiosa exhales sharply, the best her lungs can do for a sigh.  “She can’t stop the infection.”

“But what about a top-up?  If its your blood that’s sick, couldn’t you just -“ A simple shake of Furiosa’s head and the last sliver of hope dies in Toast’s mouth. It is sour, like battery acid, or a bullet casing.  “You can’t let this kill you,” she says, as if it were in Furiosa’s hands.

Furiosa actually smiles at that and throws her head back, close-cropped hair sinking into the pillow.  She would be laughing if she had enough strength.  Immortan Joe and his poisoned ilk have killed her after all. Blood poisoning just took longer than a bullet through the skull.

Max, too, had a hand in this, although Furiosa will never blame him.  If he had not stuck a knife between her ribs, she would have choked on her collapsed lung out there in the desert, in the back of the Gigahorse.  He might not have saved her life, but he gave her enough time to fix everything.  To see redemption and hold it close.

Toast frowns at Furiosa’s near-laugh, hurt, and stares down at her hands.

“Toast.”  Furiosa’s hand slips from the bed and reaches for her.  Toast takes it between her hands, then brings it to her mouth, kissing each knuckle in turn.  “Come. Lie with me.”

Toast eases herself down onto the bed, mindful of Furiosa’s infected wounds, and sets her head on Furiosa’s chest.  She can hear her heart beating, double-quick time.  If she closes her eyes, she can almost convince herself its rhythm, Furiosa’s quick breaths, and the sweat and heat on her skin and innocuous, after-effects of bedroom antics that Toast has only played out in her head.  _When she heals_ , Toast would tell herself. _When Furiosa heals, we will make it true._

But there’s no time, now.  That _when_ is a lie, shifting sand upon which nothing can be built.  Toast tries to block out the stutter of Furiosa’s heart.

Furiosa presses her lips to Toast’s hair, not quite kissing it.  “I’m sorry.”

Toast looks up, a tear slipping free of her eyelashes.  Her face is a breath away from Furiosa’s.  She licks her lips.  She has no idea what to say.

“I need to ask you to do something for me,” Furiosa says.  

From her expression, Toast can tell she won’t like what she’s about to hear.  “Anything,” she says, promise given without asking.  She owes Furiosa everything.  She had meant to pay her back with her heart, but…

“Kill me.”

Toast’s ears ring as if they are short-circuiting, not wanting to hear more.  She sits up slowly.  Which question to ask first.  “Why?”

Furiosa raises an eyebrow.  “I’m dying. Slowly. The blood poisoning is ruining everything inside me.  I don’t want to wait until my engine stalls.”

Toast blinks, fresh tears wanting to fall.  She hates hearing Furiosa talk like this, like a war boy, the world tinged in cars and engines and guzzoline.

“Why me?”  

Furiosa sets her hand over Toast’s.  “Because,” she says, squeezing her fingers, “you’re the only one I trust to do this.”

Toast feels her face twist around the pain in her chest, the sharp tightness in her throat.  “Other people could - could do it better.”  She doesn’t know how to kill. Doesn’t want to know how to kill.  Not up close.  Not Furiosa.  “The Healing Mother or a Vuvalini,” she suggests, “or even a war boy. They know how -”

Furious cuts her off.  “I want you to do it.”

“I don’t know how. I can’t -“  Toast snaps her mouth shut, teeth clanging, and stares down at their linked hands.  She watches Furiosa’s grip shift, then loosen as she slides her hand up Toast’s arm.  Furiosa’s fingers curl around her elbow and pull her down.  

As Toast leans into her, Furiosa’s hand climbs to her shoulder, then the back of her neck, guiding her further down, until Toast is once again sharing breath with Furiosa.  Then Furiosa kisses her, and the salt of her fever sweat cannot disguise the sweetness of her mouth.

Toast melts into her, her dreams taking form right beneath her lips and hands as she kisses Furiosa and cups her face as if she wants to pour all of herself into her.  When they pull back, Toast buries her face into the crook of Furiosa’s neck, the pillow beneath her cheek.

“Do you see, now?” Furiosa whispers.

Toast nods.  “When?”  _Not now. Not soon. Please, not now_ , she prays to Dag’s gods. 

Furiosa’s arm wraps itself around Toast, holding her close.  “You’ll know when.”


End file.
